Judge stops electric chair use; Supreme Court halts High execution

ATLANTA -- A Fulton County Superior Court judge granted an injunction Wednesday against electric chair executions in Georgia pending review of their constitutionality by the Georgia Supreme Court.

Judge Wendy Shoob said the state must wait for the high court to rule on whether electrocution violates the U.S. Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The state is expected to appeal her ruling.

Meanwhile Wednesday, the Georgia Supreme Court halted next week's scheduled execution of Jose Martinez High pending its decision on whether electrocution is cruel and unusual. High was set to die Tuesday for kidnapping and killing an 11-year-old Crawfordville boy, Bonnie Bulloch, in 1976.

The state's highest court had agreed March 6 to consider the constitutionality of electrocution.

Shoob's ruling came in a lawsuit filed Monday by 40 plaintiffs, including dozens of metro Atlanta ministers and theologians, asking the court to declare electrocution unconstitutional. She granted their request for an injunction against use of the chair pending the outcome of the suit.

Shoob expressed frustration that state prosecutors have continued seeking death warrants against condemned convicts even though the Supreme Court has agreed to consider the constitutional question.

Attorney General Thurbert Baker contends that the Department of Corrections should be allowed to proceed with executions until the Supreme Court rules.

''I understand you have your marching orders and you have to march until told to stop,'' Shoob told Chris Brasher, an assistant attorney general who was arguing the case. ''Are you just waiting for somebody to tell you to stop? Do you need somebody to tell you to stop, otherwise you'll just keep marching?''

Shoob's injunction, if upheld on appeal, would affect the 127 inmates on Georgia's death row scheduled to die by electrocution.

Last year, the Georgia Legislature changed the method of execution from electrocution to lethal injection for all death-penalty crimes committed after May 1, 2000.

That law does not apply to previous capital convictions. But the General Assembly said that if the state Supreme Court or U.S. Supreme Court ever found the chair unconstitutional, lethal injection would be used for all executions.

Nebraska and Alabama are the only states that have the electric chair as their only means of execution.

This article published in the Athens Daily News on Thursday, March 22, 2001.